The 13th edition of Romanian Design Week will take place in Bucharest between May 16 and 25, 2025, with the theme "Design Tomorrow Today."

According to the organizers, starting with the 2025 edition, the festival begins a transformation process, focusing on collaboration, sustainability, and a deeper connection with the city and its residents. The program highlights exhibitions created in collaboration with relevant local organizations, an extensive selection of international exhibitions, and a series of public space interventions designed to provide residents with new areas for interaction and dialogue. 

The theme "Design Tomorrow Today" demonstrates design’s ability to address current challenges and create innovative solutions that influence both the present and the future of the city, the community, and Romania’s creative ecosystem.

In this context, sustainability is not only about environmental aspects but also about supporting projects and organizations that actively contribute to the long-term development of local design and the creative community in Romania. 

In 2025, RDW will take a different approach to the festival’s well-established format, RDW Exhibitions. Instead of organizing an open call for projects, the festival will collaborate with relevant organizations from the creative industries to support and present design and architecture exhibitions. 

The festival will work directly with key organizations and partners to create impactful exhibitions that reflect both international trends and the specifics of the local industry.

Within this format, various exhibitions will be included:

• RDW Design GO! represents the circuit of satellite events within the Romanian Design Week festival program, through which, year after year, projects and activities proposed by entrepreneurs and cultural entities transform the city into a stage for design. The public can choose their own routes through the city, (re)discovering neighborhoods, places, and ideas. Events will take place in various locations across the city, providing opportunities to experience design in an accessible context for everyone. 
• RDW & the City, a completely new format, will introduce design installations placed in public spaces. These interventions will be set up in various locations throughout the city, contributing to the integration of design into daily life and offering the public a platform to directly interact with urban design elements. 
• The Institute team, together with embassies, institutes, and cultural centers, is strengthening the RDW Design Flags format this year, creating an essential platform for promoting the most valuable international design projects. This format will become a meeting point between local and global design, serving as a source of inspiration and perspective expansion for all participants.
• The RDW Young Design format will continue to focus on promoting new design talents, providing a dedicated platform for young creators to showcase their work. This format is dedicated to supporting and celebrating new visions in design, playing an important role in the professional development of emerging talent. 
• Within RDW Concept Store, the space dedicated to design consumption, the festival will maintain a mix of local and international brands, promoting design initiatives and brand activations. Pop-up fairs will be organized, featuring interactive activities where visitors can discover new brands or products available for purchase, draw inspiration from the latest trends, or meet designers. 
• The Architecture Studios Night, an original Romanian Design Week format, will continue to bring together architecture studios from Bucharest under its umbrella, offering the public a unique opportunity to enter these creative spaces and discover how architectural projects are developed in the city. This "open doors" event will encourage transparency and communication among architects, allowing them to present their projects and work in an open and accessible setting. 

"Design Tomorrow Today reflects our trust in the transformative power of design to shape our future and in the potential of the local creative community to evolve and adapt to any situation. At the same time, the theme also encompasses the commitment to continue supporting and promoting the efforts of creative industry representatives, to grow and redefine ourselves alongside them," said Raluca Mirel, Project Director of Romanian Design Week. 

radu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: the organisers)